Singapore wins back Evergreen Marine

On 2002, Evergreen Marine (长荣海运) completely pulled out of Singapore and settled down in Port of Tanjung Pelepas in Malaysia, as said due to cost issue.

Recently, the Taiwanese founder of Evergreen Group, Mr. Chang Yung-Fa (张荣发) appeared in Singapore and announced the opening of Evergreen Marine (Singapore) Pte Ltd, a newly formed company for the reentrance of Evergreen Marine back to Singapore.

Evergreen is expected to have 13 ships presently flying the Panamanian flag to move to Singapore and raise the Singaporean flag to take advantage of the Singapore's Approved International Shipping Enterprise (AIS) scheme which provides 10 years renewable tax exemption for qualified international shipping companies. In fact, one of their vessel already flying with Singaporean flag on 10 March 2009, which is their first vessel ever flying the flag of Singapore.

Mr. Chang also announced that Evergreen will expand their Singapore operations and plan to have about 50 Singapore-based fleets in the near future. This is considered significant, as Evergreen Marine has a total of about 180 vessels now.

Meanwhile, Evergreen does not have any expansion plan for their operations in Tanjung Pelepas.

This shows that Singapore has learnt their lesson, responded fast, and succeed in winning back this marine big player to their port. This move from Evergreen is expected to contribute positively to their economy and labour market. Congratulation.